


Lessons in Dark Love

by blessedharlot



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Biting, Bruises, Crying, Dario is a Good Boy, F/M, Foreign Language, Impact Play, Masochism, Morgan is a Pain Slut, Morgan is not a sub tho, Nipple Clamps, Nudity, Orgasm Control, Pain, Poetry, Polyamory, Riding Crops, Rules, Sex Games, Tit Torture, sluttery, tit fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-20 01:42:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19983970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: When Morgan seeks out help with her foreign language skills, Khalila and Dario devise a stimulating game for her.This is nebulous future, with the canon student pairings (Jess/Morgan, Khalila/Dario) now as well-established committed couples… but they’re also all sluts just starting to get generous with one another. Also Morgan loves pain -- check the tags for the laundry list, loves!





	Lessons in Dark Love

**Author's Note:**

> I agree with an esteemed colleague of mine that Dario wants every dick in the world. I posit with this story, however, that he has an equally deep desire for boobs.

Dario forced himself to turn away from the glass doors, and the scene inside. He tried to enjoy the balcony view, the balcony garden, the crystal blue sky above -- any other activity besides focusing too much, too fast on the nude form of Morgan, writing frenetically at the table inside.

He hadn't expected her to disrobe immediately, even with their agenda for the night being what it was. Her dress for this portion of the encounter wasn't specifically outlined in the agreement.

But then, Morgan had her own reasons for gaining his investment in her personal agenda tonight. And she was making some persuasive points. Two of them, in fact.

He glanced at his watch, and considered his proctoring choices. Khalila had given explicit instructions on timing, with good reasons for it. That corner of his brain that birthed all of his baser impulses unhelpfully suggested that Khalila would never know how much time he gave Morgan for her assignment. 

But Khalila also had a way of making him want his own freedom from those base impulses. Her pride and trust in him was too important to risk.

Two more minutes by the clock, he took note.

Dario looked back inside to steel himself before reentering the room. He could see glimpses of Morgan’s bare back and shoulder through the brown corkscrew curls strewn across them. Jess was right -- it was ravishing hair… or hair worth ravishing, however one looked at it. From this far away, he could also see the broadest shape of Morgan's breasts, and the suggestion of their movement caused by the hectic motions of her writing. He hoped from deep in his groin that she earned him a way to make those wobble tonight.

But if nothing else, he had some glorious new visual memories of a woman he'd had wet dreams about since the first week they'd met. He wouldn't turn that down.

He checked his watch. Thirty seconds. She must have sensed her time was running out, because the legs she'd had crossed with poise for most of her working time were now spread and flexed with tension, as though she might need to physically tackle the page to complete her work.

_Time. It’s time, Dario._

He flung the door back and shut it quick.

"Times up," he announced with his authority voice.

She continued writing as he walked toward her.

"Time is up, Morgan." He snatched the pen out of her hand as he passed around her to his chair. 

First hurdle cleared: he didn't find a reason to brush or grind into her as he passed by. _Rule for Dario: neither of you touch his cock in any way until his earned his orgasm_.

Still in her work slump, Morgan folded her empty hands on the table in front of her. She looked up with one of the scariest perturbed faces Dario had ever had the misfortune to see.

"Forty-five minutes is a ludicrously inadequate amount of time to give me to translate those poems," she stated.

Dario cleared his throat as he sat down... next to the alluring, anger-flushed, naked woman. He reached for every shred of composure he could find. Crossing his own legs might have been painful, so his thighs mirrored her spread.

"Isn't your ultimate goal to have speaking fluency in each of these languages?" Dario replied, in his best impression of Wolfe's disinterested voice. "That was the original inspiration for this exercise. You won't have forty-five minutes to compose a response to every sentence you hear in person."

"I won't be dealing with turns of phrase meant to be savored and studied with every sentence I hear either," Morgan argued… while she was naked, Dario was keenly aware.

Dario swung toward her stone-faced... but soon lost the will to argue the point.

"I agree," he said, turning back toward the papers in front of them. "But they're Khalila's rules so we follow them."

When he ventured a look back at Morgan, she has a small, rueful grin for him. 

"Somehow she's made us both work for our fun," she said.

"She has a knack for that," Dario offered.

Morgan leaned back, hooking her hands on the two posts of her chair back and pulling her arms behind her.

It was a magnificent display of magnificent breasts. They were positively ripe, with a luscious looking heft, and a slight top slope down to high, tan nipples that swelled naturally. Nipples that were currently very alert.

He hadn't played with breasts like those before.

Dario cleared his throat again.

"You can drain all the blood out of my brain that you wish,” he said. “It will only lengthen the required time for my grading tasks. Khalila will check that too. No shortcuts for us, beautiful."

"Will you at least tell me what you’ve been cleared to do to me?" She said in a tone laced with command. "I am not the obedient type, and I'm ready to be let in on the rest of the secrets."

Dario couldn't help but ply his one shred of power.

"Do you mean what I'll do if your work merits it?" He said with a headcock and what was probably his smarmiest grin.

Morgan glared with a quirked mouth. "If my work merits it," she said with a tone like cold silk.

Dario had an impulse to duck his head, but didn't. "You already know what I'll do. You asked Khalila for it."

Morgan remained relaxed, leaning back in the chair, but gave him a look he couldn't help but be proud of. It would terrorize a fair few underlings of hers in her life.

"Each one of the five poems you were given," he began, as though it was his idea to explain, "if they are adequately translated, unlocks a different tool I can use on your breasts to accomplish our task tonight."

He met her gaze with his best bedroom eyes.

"That task being abusing them to your heart's content, dear lady," he said warmly.

Morgan's breathing deepened subtly, and the pale skin around her collarbones had gone a shade pink.

"Tools I suspect she selected after your extensive conversations with one another about your interests, and mine," he said.

Morgan's head lifted up just a hair. She kept composed, and Dario suspected that only someone who'd been in a postulant class with her would recognize the trace of scholarly doubt that flitted in her eyes for an instant. Perhaps he could manage a minor negotiation now.

"Care to tell me how I earn my orgasm?" He offered.

"No," she said.

"Care to change any of your work now?"

"May I?" she asked suspiciously.

"No."

"Well then, get to grading," she instructed him.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied silkily.

Dario pored over her work. Morgan’s Obscurist gifts, and their impact on her life and political position, made it remarkably easy to forget how gifted she was at scholarship. Any language she spent much time with, she handled with ease. He wondered briefly if she truly needed the language help she'd originally asked for, or if she had forgotten herself how competent she was in scholarly pursuits.

Were it up to Dario - if he were simply helping a friend - he'd pass her on all of them. She clearly had enough fluency to avoid all but the most minor errors.

But it wasn't up to him. And truth be told, in Morgan’s position, some strict and precise training would probably serve her best. As per usual, Khalila's choices were pushing him toward the kindest and most conscientious care of others.

Morgan had leaned in to rest her chin in her hand some time ago, though Dario gave her credit for at least not appearing to read his notes while he graded. Dario was finishing up his written notes on her last translation when Morgan broke her courteous and slightly fidgety silence.

"Khalila says you're fond of breasts," she said conversationally.

Dario suppressed a laugh.

"Yes," he replied.

"What kind do you favor?"

He shook his head.

"What is that for?" Morgan asked.

"'What is it for'," he mocked loudly, then pitched his voice up a bit. "'Dario, just as a hypothetical, how do you feel about breasts?'." He shook his head again and continued to write down his last thought on the poem. "So says the naked woman next to me."

"It's a simple question."

He placed his pen down carefully and turned toward her, very specifically raising his gaze straight up to her eyes and locking her into a stare.

"All kinds,” he said fondly. “All of them. Every kind of breast. The history of humankind has among it only a few strands of inspired, sacred habits, and the existence of the worship of breasts is one true and golden thread that shines out of our muddy existence. The delicate lift of smaller ones, the grace and heft of bigger ones. The tiny nipples, the puffy nipples, brown, pink, black. Pendulous, angled. Cradled together, wide set, pressed tight, left free..." 

He let his momentum pour into a dramatic pause, and kept her gaze locked on his. He put a hand to his chest. 

"Every breast is a gift from God, and deserves a lavishment of praise, joy... and everything the owner ever wanted out of their existence."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"Even if its distinctly unworshipful?" Morgan asked with narrowed eyes.

Dario shook his head at her, and licked his lips. "Tenderness is not the only form of worship, dear lady."

At that Morgan took a deep breath and leaned back. Her arms were crossed in front this time, but underneath her breasts, so his view was still not obscured by more than a lock of hair or two, dangling down in a teasing manner. 

He took the opportunity to take a long, cool look at them as she watched, and licked his lips again.

"How many have you had the chance to lavish attention on?" she asked.

"Oh, not near enough," Dario said with a smile, still looking at her chest. "With Khalila's blessing and guidance, this pilgrim has a lot more work to do. And…"

"And?" Morgan asked when he paused.

"And to be sure, I have not yet been blessed with the opportunity to…"

"Take your leisure with breasts this size?" she offered in an amused tone.

Dario nodded. When he finally looked at her face again, she was staring at his lips and biting her own, her eyes dark and piercing.

"Yes, and so,” Dario said a little too loudly, pulling his attention away from her body and grabbing at sheets of paper. “Poetry… of some sort.”

“Right.”

“Right,” he agreed.

“Yes,” she said.

“Your Russian translation is very impressive.” Dario pulled one page out of the stack and set it on top. “Your work on Scholar Pushkin’s piece was precise and thorough. Of note was your translation of ‘сибирских руд’ as ‘Siberian _ore_ ’ and not just the more general term of ‘land’ or ‘soil’. I also appreciated your elegant phrasing, “the faithful sister to all woe, Hope”. Nicely done. And then ‘бодрость и веселье’ as ‘courage and gaiety’, quite fair. This is well done, a clear pass.”

“Thank you,” Morgan replied. “And for passing this one we get to use…?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

Dario’s mouth watered. “Clamps. For those jewels which currently point at me.”

Morgan let out a soft grunt of pleasure, and closed her eyes a moment, clearly savoring the idea. When she opened them, she looked him up and down lustfully.

Then she snapped back into a cool composure. “Don’t be too flattered yet,” she said. “Russian gets me hot and bothered.”

“That’s fair, it’s a sultry sort of language.”

“Next?” Morgan said with a smile.

“Next,” Dario replied, shuffling papers and resettling them with a sharp sigh. “Scholar Hanshan.”

“Oh, yes, thank you both,” she said with an edge. “For the pop quiz on... how old is that Chinese dialect?”

“Roughly eighth century, we’re not certain.”

“I certainly didn’t study that dialect. I asked for this help in order to gain fluency in languages spoken _today_.”

“The classics are always important, Morgan.”

“While we’re on the subject, why am I unfamiliar with all of these poets? Are these all Black Archives reclamations?”

Dario nodded.

“They are,” he said. “Khalila’s involved in the most recent discovery of duplicates, which included all of these poems in manuscript form. She might have us doing triple duty tonight. Juggling our lust and your linguistic study alongside important research.”

“And who gets credit for this research?”

“We’ll get a footnote, I’m certain,” he grinned.

“Even in her fucking, she’s so efficient.”

“Indeed. Now. Scholar Hanshan.”

Dario frowned over her work. He was developing Khalila’s eye for grading, and as soon as he considered addressing one error, another popped into his field of vision. But that was hardly the mood he wanted to set just now.

Then he had an idea.

“Let me read you our team’s best translation so far. You’ll see how it compares to yours.”

He held the paper up, and pulled himself up straight for declamation purposes:

> "How can reading a book keep you from dying? 
> 
> How can reading a book keep you from being poor? 
> 
> So why all this love of learning? To read, 
> 
> As if loving to read made you better than others? 
> 
> Just this: real humans, if they don’t love learning, 
> 
> Where shall they find peace for this body? 
> 
> Bitter herbs are the best medicine, 
> 
> But they are hard to swallow . . . 
> 
> Try some garlic sauce. That’ll help you get it down."

Morgan giggled good naturedly at the end. 

“That’s good,” she said.

“Yes it is,” Dario smiled. “Your translation is not. Clear fail. Let’s leave it at that.”

“It is most certainly nine minutes’ worth of passing work,” Morgan demanded. “This is not fair, Dario.”

“No, it’s not.”

“The language is ancient. And my time too short.”

“I understand. But those are the rules.”

“And is there any room,” she said in a low voice, snaking an arm his way, “to encourage generosity on your part?”

“None at all.” 

She sighed. “What have I lost?”

Dario winced. “The paddle.”

Morgan inhaled sharply and shook her head.

“Moving on,” he said. “Your Italian.”

“First of all, I’d like to object to Italian even being involved in the testing. I told Khalila this wasn’t a priority.”

“Italian isn’t a priority? That’s ridiculous. You’ll certainly need Italian.”

“Of course I will. But here’s the truth of it.” Morgan threw a palm out for emphasis as she spoke, which again drew Dario’s attention to the fact that she had not one stitch of clothing, anywhere. “I buy Nic a few bottles of wine and drink it with him,” she said, “And I have all the Italian training I need.” Morgan shrugged.

“Fair point. But here’s the other truth of it,” he replied, and leaned in for emphasis. “If you want me to take a riding crop to your tits, you need to have already translated this poem from Scholar Carducci in an adequate manner.”

Morgan breath caught, and she got very still and quiet. “Also a fair point. Please tell me I won the crop. Please.”

“It’s mostly a masterful translation on your part. We need to talk about this one line, however-”

“Dario.”

“We have ‘A Cristo in faccia irrìgidi nei marmi’ in the original.”

“Tell me I won the crop, Dario.”

“One submitted translation from our team at the office is, ‘In face of Christ, in marble hard and firm.’”

“For the love of Christ, Dario.” Morgan rubbed her hands down her thighs and scoffed with impatience.

“You… submitted to me…” he said, waiting until she looked his way.

She finally stopped shaking her head and glared at him.

“‘To Christ, in his face, I stiffen my marble and spray.’”

Morgan shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“As a fellow Catholic, I have some concerns that your personal grasp of theology may be inadequate.”

“The line right after talked about naked bodies. It sounded sexual to me.”

“A sexual reference to Christ?”

“Haven’t we established they’re condemned heretics?”

“I think perhaps this single line, in an otherwise curiously flawless translation,” Dario eyed her suspiciously, “might be a victim of your one-track mind.”

“If I lost the crop for my joke, Dario, I swear to every God-”

“I’m passing you.”

Morgan gasped, stopped cold, and hiccuped.

“You clearly know the language,” Dario laughed. “You’re also incorrigable with a terrible sense of humor.”

Morgan smiled to herself and breathed heavily, absentmindedly rubbing two fingertips across her breastbone.

“Likewise, your Spanish is excellent. As well it should be, as often as you’ve endured me drunkenly yelling it in your presence.”

Morgan smiled at him.

“I’m curious,” he said. “Do you remember how you selected ‘darkly’ for ‘oscuro’ in the passage, ‘y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo / el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra’... ‘and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose / from the earth lives darkly in my body’? Oscuro could mean also mean dim or shadowy or even obscure in this context.”

Morgan mused a moment, her chin in her hand again. The ease with which she sat at the table, gesticulating like they were arguing homework again was so alluring to Dario. She was sumptuous when trying to seduce him, no doubt, but when she was unself-conscious - like now - he could lose his head. Either head.

“Darkness is the strongest word, and it’s such a lovely thing,” she said, staring softly through the table. “Darkness doesn’t get enough loving attention in poetry. It’s always made to be something mean or bad. But too much light is excruciating. It destroys you. Darkness is nourishing. The thought of a dark aroma arising from love just felt right.”

She cut her eyes toward Dario in an unguarded way, and he smiled.

“I think Scholar Neruda would approve,” he said. “And your mastery of Spanish gives us both… my palm… to work with tonight.”

Morgan breathed in the news deeply, and let out a satisfying sigh. “Clamps... crop... palm!”

“Now, the last one,” Dario said, frowning. “I should have presented these in a slightly different order, come to think of it.”

“My French was fine,” she said in an immediate huff.

Dario pursed his lips and looked at her sternly.

“By what metric are you grading these?” she cried.

“By the metric of you clearly demonstrating fluency in the language, Morgan!”

“I did brilliantly on the French. I most certainly did nine full minutes of brilliance on the French, which was all I was given. I knew enough of what Scholar-” 

She leaned back in to read his name.

“Scholar Baudelaire had to say. However. Dario Santiago, you have to concede, that by the time I got to the French piece, you weren’t playing fair.”

“Excuse me?”

“You kept turning toward the bridge view every time I looked at you, and your growing bulge was silhouetted against the… Look, I was thinking about your cock the whole time. While managing a *ridiculously* short time to- just let me try again,” she demanded, “before you give me any notes, let me try again.”

“You find my cock distracting?” He grinned.

“Well, yes,” she conceded. “But I also haven’t seen it yet.”

Dario’s grin faded immediately, and he squinted at her. “You’re a cold and haughty woman, Obscurist Hault.”

“That’s not much of an insult. Tell me what’s wrong with my French.”

“Let’s talk about this line: ‘Quand la pluie étalant ses immenses traînées…’, you say, ‘when the crawling spiders of scattershot rains-’ First-”

“It’s a poetic translation.”

“First, spiders is suspect, but I’m not even counting off for that. I understand it plays off the earlier imagery. It’s not solidly in that line, but I’ll give you that. But scattershot rain? The rain here is not scattershot. There’s not even support for that in the given metaphors.”

“I have to pay some atten- Dario, the spider connects to the earlier bat, and the-”

“‘Immenses’ is one of the most straightforward words to translate in the whole piece. It’s immense, huge. Vast. There’s plenty of better words than ‘scattershot.’ which is actively not the image.”

“It’s not immense rain, it’s immense trails of rain. He’s comparing it to prison bars, bars are not walls. Bars are discrete entities that together make up an immensity. A vast amount of rain would be a wall, scattershot rain is more like prison bars.”

Dario scoffed quietly, not daring to be convinced.

"What tool do we win or lose with the French, Dario?"

He spoke slowly through the ache of loss. "Teeth," he said sadly.

Morgan's eyes got wide.

“Let me try again. Dario, you can’t. Teeth!? Neither one of us deserves to have the use of teeth withheld from us tonight!”

Dario sighed deeply. 

“Dario,” she warned.

He wouldn’t tell her this, but Khalila did want her to have some room to negotiate. She thought Morgan would enjoy it more that way.

“Dario!” Morgan demanded.

Dario let her think she’d brow-beaten him. He picked up his Codex and messaged Khalila to explain Morgan's angst.

He folded his hands, and they both sat in silence waiting for reply. It was Morgan who first dipped her gaze again down Dario's body, and Dario couldn't help but follow her lead, his mouth watering again as he did so.

Then the chime came. Dario gave Morgan a long look before he reopened his Codex and read Khalila's note.

"You may choose one of the failed poems," he announced. "You will have five more minutes to work-"

"Five,” she echoed, and shook her head in disbelief.

"And Khalila suggests you get with her to negotiate a second lesson since you are - and I quote her here -” he said defensively, “‘clearly in dire need of more tutoring.'”

Dario pursed his lips to refrain from saying any of the things that sprung to mind.

Morgan's eyes flashed. “Oh. She and I are certainly going to have a talk when this is done.”

“Are you refusing the five minutes?”

“No! Give me a poem.”

“Which tool do-”

“Biting! I want biting," she growled.

She snatched the French out of his hand and plowed directly into rewriting, while Dario scrambled to check the start time accurately. She wrote furiously, and this time Dario could revel in his view down her writing shoulder, his chin in his hand, noting the specific patterns of ripples and sways that her motions sent across the swells of her flesh.

He let it sink in: they had palms to play with. Palms. He could take those beauties into his hands, feel her flesh against his skin. Do with them as he (and she) pleased. They had crop and nipple clamp too. He could mark them and pull them taut until she made noises that resonated in his loins. Dario didn’t seek out visiting pain on lovers, per se, but he could certainly find a lengthy and engorging value in their enjoyment of it.

His erection got very nearly painful in his trousers, but it was manageable. He'd chosen his garments very carefully tonight, knowing that even adjusting himself manually would violate the rules.

He sat watching Morgan as she poured all her attention onto the page, again heedless of his gaze on her. It was extraordinary, how both Khalila and Morgan were so extravagantly beautiful, and strong, in such very different ways.

As Dario looked at his watch to count down the last few seconds, Morgan snapped her pen down on the table and leaned away in defiance.

"Done early, then?" he smiled. "Was it an overly generous amount of time?"

"Hush,” she ordered. “Grade.”

Dario grinned and looked over her paper. Her cleverness and passion immediately shone through.

As he read, Dario put a hand to his chest and let a brief moan of awe escape his lips.

> "— And a long line of hearses, with neither dirge nor drums, 
> 
> Begins to cross my soul. Weeping, with steps that lag, 
> 
> Hope walks in chains; and Anguish, after long wars, becomes 
> 
> Tyrant at last, and plants on me his inky flag."

For an instant he felt tears prick at his eyes. His friend had dug deep into her heart - and her past - for that inspiration.

"That…" he said quietly, "is despair of a very high quality."

"This Baudelaire was a cheery fellow," Morgan said with affection.

"Wasn't he? I like him."

Dario took just a moment to examine a couple of word choices, to be certain he could back up the choice he was making.

Then he nodded.

"Pass."

Morgan threw her head back and let out a long groan of satisfaction. Then she leveled a hard, dark gaze at Dario - a look that felt like the full force of her desire suddenly poured onto him. It took Dario entirely off-guard, and nearly had him spoiling his very attractive trousers before they even started.

"Alright,” he said, scrabbling for composure, “my meager powers here all but spent-"

"You can be spent, that’s fine. You’re still trouncing me."

Dario swallowed a gasp. “Don’t interrupt. It’s rude! As i was saying, now that I… have exercised… the bulk of my authority in this situation, it falls to you to choose the location and position in which I will serve you."

"Well you'll need room for a full swing," she mused, looking around. "And I suppose I could be near a wall in case i need support later. Here we are."

She saw the suitable area the same time he did. Morgan bounded up - a delightful sight, hair and breasts bobbing - and staked her space, while Dario made a useless attempt at gathering their papers before losing interest and leaving them half scattered across the table.

He began rolling his sleeves up as he crossed to the chair holding the bag he'd brought, which he then carried closer to the wall where Morgan stood.

"That's a lot of bag for a crop, a paddle and clamps."

"There are other tools," he said cryptically. "First aid supplies, blankets, and so forth."

"Mm," she said nodding gleefully.

Dario reached into the bag and brought up a jar the size of his palm. Unscrewing the lid, he released a vaguely astringent smell into the air. He reached into the jar and approached Morgan with a dollop of cool, thin cream on his fingers. 

He reached out and pressed the cream into one of her nipples. The cold brought a slight twitch to one of Morgan's eyebrows and she smiled.

"I don’t recall earning this," she said in a low voice.

"Precautionary antiseptic," he said innocently, as he took the excuse to rub the cream into her skin, pale and full under his hand. The soft weight gave a little tremble all its own, separate from Morgan's still fairly even breathing. 

He took another dollop from the tin and let his hand wander all over her chest, touching every bit of skin, caressing and pressing and lifting as the content of a dozen past wet dreams buzzed in Dario's groin.

Morgan wet her lips and started to move them to speak, completely enrapturing him, and he leaned in to watch her glistening mouth impart something to him. 

"Don't… you… dare keep touching me that softly," she said, fire in her eyes.

“I wouldn't dream of it, dear lady," he gasped with a smile.

Dario closed the jar, and reached again for his own self-composure, before opening his mouth to speak.

"At any point in time, you may say pause, or stop, and I will obey your wishes,” he explained. “When I ask you how you are, you may answer good, not good, bad, tired, bored, and so forth."

"If you bore me, you won't have to ask to find out."

He grinned. "Yes and no are clear answers to certain questions, they are not clear answers to blows or sensations. If you wish to pause or stop-"

"Or go faster, or harder…"

He nodded. "Then use those words and ask explicitly, please."

Morgan nodded.

He continued. "You will have a great deal of control over your sensations in this encounter, but it is my job to have the clearer head."

Morgan badly suppressed a laugh.

"And if you have not ended the scene yourself,” he said in a firm tone, “by the time I read certain cues from you, I will end it, and my decision will be final."

"Agreed,” Morgan said. “Though if you go easy on me or lose your nerve and halt it early, I will make sure you pay for my anguish, in a way you won't enjoy."

Dario swallowed hard with terror and delight. "I believe you.”

"Get on with it," she said gutterally.

Dario pressed a palm into her nipple and squeezed, digging his spread fingers into her flesh with considerable force. 

Morgan took a long, smooth deep breath in and smiled, as if she’d just walked out into a perfumed spring meadow.

“Yeeees,” she said in English on her exhale.

He hadn’t let go or eased up by her second breath, so that one fluttered out in a grunt.

“Are we calling this… use of palm?” she gasped.

Dario leaned in to better feel her breath across his neck.

“The physics of the vise grip does rely on the palmar surface to make the pressure work,” he said. “So yes.”

When Morgan began heavy puffs of air through clenched teeth, he let go.

Then he immediately slapped the other breast, hard, and watched as it shuddered of its own weight. A bright pink handprint quickly began appearing on her porcelain skin.

Morgan’s breath caught, and she smiled at him wickedly.

“It took four months of work to get Jess to hit me that hard,” Morgan breathed.

“Sweet boy, he loves you so much.”

“He does.”

Dario stepped to the side, admiring the view of shuddering flesh as he landed a hard, glancing blow down the front of one breast. 

“I offer a different kind of love,” he told her.

“I knew I could count on you to hurt me, Dario,” Morgan said.

He stepped in front of her again and struck the same breast, crossways from the side.

“That was a joke earlier, by the way,” Dario said. “About the vise grip.”

“Oh?”

“Our restrictions are nowhere near that punctilious,” he laughed. “Hm, although that could be fun too.”

He slapped both breasts simultaneously, and followed up with another immediate double blow in the same places.

Morgan moaned. “‘Palm’ here just means open hand and not punches, doesn’t it?”

“Precisely.”

“Oh,” she said with an air of disappointment. “I’ll just have to earn your punches some other way, then.”

Dario had pulled back to slap again, and stopped, startled by his cock leaping at her comment.

He blinked at her.

“Ever punched somebody because they’d enjoy it?” she asked with a leer.

He frowned thoughtfully and stepped closer to her. “Possibly. But not intentionally. Yet.”

He gently lifted a hand as if to lift a breast, and opened his mouth as if preparing to bite… and then stopped both motions. Dropped his hand. Met her gaze and tapped his teeth together. Morgan gasped and moaned. 

“Mean, that’s so mean,” she whined. 

“Oh, a petulant stance from the typically regal Miss Hault. How delectable.”

“Are we allowed to kiss?” she asked in a low, aching voice.

“That depends. Will you bite me in anger?”

“Which answer gets me a kiss?”

Dario smiled and covered her mouth with his -- a rough, wet grinding of tongues that sent a jagged shock of lust down Dario’s chest.

He pulled back and gripped one breast as tight as he could, for an instant, and let go.

Morgan pulled in a shuddering breath at that.

Dario backed away, dipped a hand in the bag and returned.

“Shall I stop this scattershot use of pain, then?” he asked with a grin, as his fingers followed the narrow chain in his hand to the black metal clamps at either end. They were ornately beautiful, in the Japanese style that would tighten with any pressure put on the chain between them.

Morgan shivered, eyeing the clamps lustfully.

“Hold whatever incorrect opinions of poetry you have to,” she said, “just use those beautiful things.” Her last phrase came out more as a plea than a command, though she still had steel in her gaze when their eyes met.

He brought one closed clamp to her lips first, in a ritual of consent with toys that they were all quite fond of. She leaned in and kissed it - an agreement to keep going - then gave him a soft, dark look.

Dario took one of the clamps in each hand and brushed the tips of the braces against Morgan’s nipples in tandem, turning them to get the most of the cool metal against her areolas.

Her lids fluttered around that steel gaze of hers for a moment, and her breaths deepened.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, Dario.” 

“Please what?” he asked, tracing larger patterns across her breasts with the hard metal mechanisms.

“You know what I need, I’m aching for it. Put those on me and pull. Please.”

“What happens when I do?” 

“I fly,” she gasped, straining to control her voice.

They had so much in common, he and Morgan. It was easy to forget.

He dropped one clamp and reached for an areola. 

Morgan shuddered as he pinched at the erect flesh until it was flat in his hand, and closed a clamp onto it. She squeaked as the clamp tightened when he grasped the one on the other end of the chain. She moaned when he pinched the other nipple and closed the second clamp on it. 

Dario had felt every touch of his fingertips against her nipples straight down to his groin, and his own breath quickened.

Morgan took deep, practiced breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. Dario lifted his hands carefully to put a feather touch on both her shoulders. He watched her face and caressed her neck as she adjusted to the new level of pain.

The picture was blindingly beautiful. The arcs of her body, the arcs of the clamps, the arc of the swinging chain all echoing each other against that granite stature of hers… that strength and fire Morgan always carried. He waited until it looked like she’d found her way -- like the spread of her shoulders had grown steady again. And then his fingers wandered down the slopes of her breasts, worrying for just an instant that his rough, mortal hands would sully that exalted flesh.

He reached his palms under each breast and lifted, gently. Each movement must tug at that skin, at those nerves, even just a little -- and her face said as much. It’s why tiny twitches gathered at the side of her mouth. It’s why she breathed so gingerly as he moved them, as though she had a broken rib. It’s why her arms now stay motionless at her side as he lifted her breasts as far as they’d gently go. Each twin pinch of flesh was connected to all the rest - it was so easy to forget until you’d caught those single pinpoints - and so to move the whole glorious swells was to move those tightened clamps. To tug at one thread was to tug at the whole net.

Dario watched Morgan face carefully as he dropped his hands. 

Her breasts fell back to where they usually stood, and an instant later the weight of the clamps dropped to their natural position, or perhaps a bit farther to the floor, and yanked on each breast.

Morgan let out a howl, chancing an iron grip on one of his arms to manage the short shock of pain. She then stood there, sucking in breaths.

“That was good,” she said, beaming. 

“Good?”

“Good idea.”

“It was an experiment I wanted to try,” he said. “Little breasts don’t work quite like that.”

“No, I imagine they don’t.”

“You have to pull on little ones.”

To illustrate what he meant - as though it were necessary - he used two fingers to gingerly raise up the chain swinging between her nipples. He brought it high enough for her to see clearly his fingers against the links of the black chain, and then he very slowly carried it away from her torso as far as the slack would allow.

He wasn’t visibly moving her breasts, not yet, though he knew she was feeling his every movement. As sensitive and raw as every nerve of hers was, he thought for an instant that it might even be possible for her to feel the pulse of his erection through his touch on the chain. 

She swallowed back shuddering breaths and smiled at him, half closing her eyes.

Dario felt himself blush from the heat of her trust, closing her eyes in her state, with him.

Then he slowly, gently pulled away from her.

Pulled until the drooping clamps swayed. Pulled until they lifted. Pulled until the clamps held her nipples taut. Pulled until the rest of her breast tissue was visibly moving.

Morgan eyes had closed completely and she was clearly concentrating on keeping her breath from going ragged.

He kept pulling until the clamps were lifting her breasts away from her chest. Pulled until Morgan’s breath was heavier. Pulled until Morgan hummed softly through her lips and shuddered.

Pulled until Morgan opened her mouth to moan loudly, and stopped there, holding the chain in place.

Had she wanted less tension, Morgan could have swayed his way, or taken a step. She could have closed the distance between them and slackened the chain, but she didn’t. She kept her shoulders as erect as a queen, and gasped through the pain… each gasp, no doubt, shifting the distance between breast and chain and sharpening the hurt from this position. 

Dario watched her face as they stay that way for several minutes, Morgan diving deep through something. He felt certain that at first, she was enjoying the jolts that her gasping sent through her. But eventually, he thought, she was getting thrill from how still she could make herself while enduring the sensations. 

He was also fairly certain she had forgotten he was there for part of her journey through the experience.

Her breathing had slowed down - as much a way to even out the pressure as it was a way to feel control, he suspected - until he relented on his pressure and brought her back to a resting position. Then she groaned and shuddered and grabbed for his arm.

“Oh my,” she said, and giggled.

Her lucidity is waning, he thought.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Good.” She hummed tunelessly. “Tipsy.” Her eyes wandered around the room, taking in the light at the window. “What time is it?”

Dario furrowed his brow and showed her his watch. 

“Why?” he asked. “Is that your way of saying you’re bored?”

“No, not in the slightest,” she said, giggling. “Keep going.”

“Clamps on or off for crop time?”

“On. They’re getting numb anyway.”

Dario narrowed his eyes at her.

“Not numb yet!” she insisted. “Don’t take them anywhere. They’re just evening out on the sensation level is all. Good buzz. Good to go. Good to know.” She giggled again.

“You really are drunk,” Dario smiled.

Morgan nodded, grinning. Then she either leaned into him, or swayed into him. Or maybe a little of both, Dario thought.

“So that’s a yes on kissing?” Morgan said.

Dario smiled. “I can touch you anywhere we both agree on, with almost any part of me. The only areas with restrictions tonight are the earned tools on your breasts…” and he sighed. “And my cock and balls.”

“No touching there with anything unless you earn your orgasm?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t touch yourself either?”

“No.”

“What’s that like while you play with my tits?”

Dario smiled. “Exquisite torment.”

“Oh, angel,” she said sympathetically, carefully reaching two fingers into the hair behind his ear. “Grab my tit and kiss me.”

Their lips met wet and soft, tongues exploring, as Dario’s hand pressed gently in to massage a breast. To Dario, it could have been a sweet, gently arousing squeeze of foreplay, except for the cold clamp under his palm and Morgan’s sounds of choked lust as she broke the kiss to gasp for air. He massaged a few more seconds, until her chokes hit a certain pitch.

“Alright,” he said, pulling away and putting a hand on her cheek. “Even breaths. Stay here. I’m getting the crop.”

Morgan whimpered, and swayed, but stood in place and he slowly stepped back. 

He pulled the leather riding crop out of the bag and she whimpered again - a long, sob-like sound - when she laid eyes on it.

“Is this what you want?” he asked teasingly.

Morgan sobbed a few more times, hot tears welling in her eyes.

“Yes!” She practically stamped her foot like a child.

_That’s new,_ Dario thought. He put a hand on her cheek.

“Morgan,” he said softly. “Take a deep breath.”

“You have to use the crop, Dario!”

“I will, I promise,” he decided. “You’ve earned it, I won’t withdraw it.”

She sobbed again at that.

“But I want you to be calmer before we start.”

Morgan nodded, lifting her hands toward her head and visibly struggling to stop crying.

“It’s just that…” she sniffed. “I came a lot before I started flying, and… sometimes that… shakes my composure.”

He kept stroking her cheek. It seemed to help.

“Okay, okay,” she whispered to herself, eyes tightly shut. “Okay.”

She squared her shoulders again, and her breathing slowly lost its most ragged edges.

Morgan opened her eyes and gave Dario a dark, liquid stare.

He touched an edge of the crop’s tongue to her sternum first, then drew it up to trace a collarbone. Dario took his time, noticing again the porcelain tone of her skin, and the faded sprays of red and pink his gropes and slaps had left. 

_Haven’t left good lasting marks yet,_ Dario thought. _The crop and bites will fix that oversight._

Her exhales soon sounded like long, soft hums, as she waited and watched him.

Finally, Dario angled the crop around and lay it against the outer curve of a breast - an angle that missed the clamp directly, but would land the crop’s entire triangular tongue on her skin. Dario’s force - if applied properly - would wrap the leather around her rounded flesh for an instant of fire against her skin.

He placed it just where he wanted it, turned his gaze back to her face, and gave his wrist a flick.

It took only a second after impact for the sting to grow and send a shudder through Morgan. 

“Oh, fuck!” she hollered.

Dario smiled.

“That stings,” she said.

“You’re kidding me!”

“No, it… it really does sting.”

He reached over and quickly popped a second, similar strike on the other breast.

Morgan gave a little shriek. Then she laughed.

“That one startled me.”

“Startled you?” he asked, and he positioned the crop flat against skin above a nipple.

“Well, yes.”

“I suppose it could come as a surprise.” He snapped his wrist again, and this time saw more clearly as the soft cream of her skin turned into a triangular, bright red welt before his eyes. As he watched, her sound began as a shriek and managed to turn into a grunt by the end. 

“Pain starting to hit the spot?” He asked, curious.

Morgan’s brow furrowed in concentration and she nodded, closing her eyes.

He gave her several more pops, all around the outer curves of her breasts, leaving delicious raised red marks.

Then Dario paused for a moment, and looked closely at her.

She slowly realized he wasn’t hitting her anymore, and calmly opened her eyes.

“How are you?”

Morgan nodded.

“That’s not an answer,” he said. He lifted the crop up and touched it as lightly as he could to one clamp.

“Fucking hell,” she whispered calmly as she watched him do it. “Do it, Dario. Yes, yes, do it. Do it!”

He snapped his wrist, and the tongue of the crop landed partly on the top pink curve of her areola, and partly on the clamp itself.

This time Morgan didn’t scream, though she made a low gutteral sound and reached for his empty-handed arm to brace against the pain. Her body clearly wanted to double over but she didn’t. She remained fairly upright.

She nodded to him - vigorously - and he aimed and landed another nearly identical strike on her other nipple.

Again she didn’t scream, but only sucked in air. This time she dug into his forearm, though, hard enough to leave bruises. 

_Close,_ he thought. _We’re close._ She used her gripping hand to put a little of her weight on him. _Close, but not yet._

He lifted the crop to the first clamp, and she nodded vigorously. In quick succession he delivered 

A second set of similar blows to each nipple.

She stood in place, still leaning on his forearm, and her head twitched backwards several times.

He waited and watched, as she shivered some more.

“Morgan. Talk to me.”

She shivered another moment, and then stopped.

“I’m okay,” she sniveled. “I’m okay. I’m just more emotional than I intended. I’m alright.”

He lifted her face up to his, and found her eyes glassy but fierce.

“Alright,” he said. “But I’m pulling your clamps off.”

“Dario.”

“They’ve been on too long, dear, they need to come off.”

“First of all, there’s no such thing as too long. They just hurt more coming off. That’s not a real problem. Second, Dario-”

He stepped away only enough to put the crop in the bag, and Morgan seemed to panic.

“Dario!” she screamed.

He stepped back to her quickly, and wrapped his arms around her as best he could without disturbing the clamps. “Darling, what’s wrong?”

“You’re not done!”

“I’m well aware. This isn’t the end, this is just the clamps coming off.”

“Don’t you dare be done. I earned it, Dario!”

“I know, beautiful. It’s coming, take a breath. Take a breath for me.”

Morgan sobbed again, but appeared to be getting herself under control. Dario held her and waited.

When she was still again, Dario reached for one of the clamps, hovering his fingers above where they’d need to be to loose the brace.

“Both,” she said. “Do both.”

Dario considered her idea, and accepted it. She’d just taken multiple crop strikes to them. The rush of blood back into long-compressed flesh couldn’t hurt too much more than that.

Before he got entirely into position, Morgan spoke again.

“I earned it, Dario.”

Dario realized what she meant and looked at her, dubious. 

“You want it while the clamps come off?”

Morgan nodded, staring at his lips.

Dario nodded, then immediately shook his head in disbelief.

“You are a truly intimidating lover of pain,” he said.

Her eyes rolled back just a little in anticipation, and she let him position himself to do what he was about to do.

Dario took a deep breath of his own. Then, moving quickly, he opened the clamps, pulled them away from her breasts, and dropped them to the floor.

Immediately after, he took one breast into his hands and sunk his teeth into the triangular crop welt just above the nipple as hard as he dared.

Morgan let out a low, long deep moan, sounding nothing at all like a woman in deep pain, but very much like a woman in the throes of an intense orgasm.

As she moaned rhythmically, he reached for the other breast - the welt on the outer curve this time - and both bit into it and sucked against the skin, aiming to leave the best mark he could manage. 

Morgan curled herself around his head, making several aborted attempts toward clutching at him, groping him - possibly even climbing him at one point - but pulled away just in time, every time. It was a mark of how far gone she was that Morgan was having that much trouble remembering rules she clearly didn’t wish to break.

By the time her moaning slowed, she was draped against him, and Dario was all but holding her up. As her sounds reached a near whisper, he reached for one last bite… in the meaty muscle between her breast and her armpit. She let out a delicious whimper, and shuddered one last time. 

Then she went limp in his arms.

“Alright, beautiful,” Dario said, adjusting his hold on her slack form and stroking her hair. “You are spent.”

She stirred a little at his voice.

“And so…” He kicked the clamps toward the bag from where he stood. “We are done.”

“No… not quite…” Morgan somehow found a command voice for an instant.

But Dario wasn’t buying it. “Morgan, my dear, you really are done. Teeth, crop, hand and clamps and you are absolutely wasted. I’m declaring our adventure complete.”

“No, Dario, listen.” She met his eye and chuckled knowingly into his collarbone. _Her grown up laugh again_ , he thought. “I’m not being difficult. I trust your judgement. While… I could certainly keep going…”

Dario checked and he was still carrying her whole weight, her feet limp against the ground.

“If you say we're done with the tools,” she continued. “Then we are. But we have... just one more thing to do.”

She drew a finger across his lower lip.

“One more thing that you've earned,” she said.

Dario’s pulse quickened so fast, he nearly dropped her.

“What?” he exclaimed. “Are you joking? What?”

Morgan smiled a drunken smile.

Dario looked back over the evening. “How did I do it?”

“Took care of me,” she croaked, caressing his cheek. She then began to work to get her feet back under her, bracing herself against his shoulders. “Checked on me in good time, in the requisite manner… stopped firmly. So forth. There was a checklist. I don’t remember them all now but-”

Dario grabbed her by the hair and kissed her. She pressed against him, sturdier now, but he could feel the heat radiating off her breasts even through his shirt.

Dario pulled off her lips, gasping.

“Alright then,” he said, in shock. He was lightheaded and words came slowly. “Then. What’s… how? Is... is there an assigned position?”

In answer, Morgan pressed her breasts together for a moment. “Use my breasts. Any position.”

Dario jaw dropped. “Tit fucking.”

“Yes.”

That would hurt her so much. _She’d enjoy that,_ he reminded himself. Those splendid breasts wrapped around his-

_Don’t come yet, for God’s sake._

“How… how rough?” he asked softly, sympathetically.

“Rough as you want. Please yourself, Dario.”

“Jesu cristo. Alright. Alright.” He ran his hands through his hair and took some breaths to calm himself.

He looked at Morgan again, searching for clues for what he should do.

“Do you…” He groped for words. “Do you have what you need-”

She laughed. “Just grab my tits and masturbate with them, Dario.”

“Alright. Alright, stop talking like that.” If she didn’t stop talking-

She didn’t stop talking. “Whatever it is you want to do most, baby, with my tits and your cock, pressed together, rubbing against each other, do it right-”

Dario leaned in to shove his tongue into her mouth one more time. It was very slightly less arousing than what had been pouring out of her mouth.

When he thought he had a handle on himself again, he pulled away.

“Okay,” he said. “There's... no dignified way to do this, dear one.”

“Here, do it this way,” she said, smiling, and she dropped to her knees. 

_It’s a controlled fall, she managed it. She’s okay, she’s telling you to do this._

“Dario, considerate beautiful friend, I am in dire, desperate need of your come on my neck.”

“Oh, Jesu Cristo, Morgan!” He finally unfastened his trousers and pulled out his cock, already smeared liberally with an evening’s worth of precum. “This is gonna be embarrassingly brief enough as it is.”

“Oh no, you find me unbearably attractive! That’s the worst possible outcome,” she snorted. “Men.”

“Hush, so I can concentrate on using you for my own selfish desires.”

“So which is your goal?” She laughed. “Do you want to concentrate or do you need a little distraction, honey?”

“I want… to clearly remember every detail of your magnificently marked breasts wrapped around my cock,” he sighed.

Dario took in the sight of her -- on her knees, hands on her thighs, breasts striped and swollen, hair strewn across her squared shoulders, staring at his cock and licking her lips. 

_How are they both such goddesses?_

“I also wish to make it last an hour,” he mused with a smile.

"Mmm, good luck," Morgan said, then she lifted her breasts and ran a tongue down her cleavage, just about where the head of his cock would be peeking out shortly. 

“Oh, Madre de Dios,” Dario said. 

Then he gave up on controlling the situation, on worrying about Morgan, on anything but sliding between the work he’d done all night and luxuriating in her flesh... which he did, until he had indeed blown his mind and sent come all over her neck and shoulders.

When Dario had come, he put a hand to her cheek and dropped down to his knees next to her. He took her into his arms and peppered both breasts with kisses until she was moaning and giggling in turns. 

He was barely conscious of it, but he reached the bag and pulled out a blanket he wrapped them both in. He sat himself up against a nearby piece of furniture, and Morgan curled up in his arms.

It wouldn’t be a place to sleep, but they both needed a moment to collect themselves, he decided. 

For several minutes, they sat in silence, Dario stroking her back gently.

“How do you look that graceful when you come?” she eventually mused. “You were making a very elegant pose.”

“I have a deep grace inherent to my person.”

“No, really.”

“I practiced,” he said.

“You practiced?” she said in wonderment. “Like with a mirror?”

“Yes.”

“How long?” she asked.

“Most of the first few years I masturbated.”

Morgan let out a long fit of giggles.

“It was necessary,” Dario explained. “You don’t understand. Women can lose control and remain quite elegant. Men become straining, yawning beasts, and who wants that?

“You wanted to be pretty. While you came.”

“My lovers deserve no less.”

“I love you, Dario,” she laughed.

“I love you too, dear friend. And I love your spectacular breasts.”

“My breasts love you.”

Dario hummed. “That’s all I want out of life. Put that on my gravestone. ‘Breasts loved him.’”

Morgan giggled, then she stretched and yawned, and settled back against his chest.

Passed out from pain and lovemaking, Dario marveled that she still somehow radiated the formidable grace and strength she’d had since they’d first met. She’d always reminded him so much of Khalila. As different as they were, they could have been sisters. They’d no doubt considered themselves that, in spirit.

_Extraordinary, the lot of them_ , he thought.

**Author's Note:**

> The Russian poem is Alexandr Pushkin’s “Message to Siberia” with translation work by Max Eastman and Rachel Douglas.
> 
> The Chinese poem is #79 of Hanshan’s _Cold Mountain Poems_ , as translated by J.P. Seaton.
> 
> The Italian poem fragment is from “Primavere Elleniche” by Giosuè Carducci and translated by Frank Sewall, with Google and I building the joke line.
> 
> The Spanish poem is Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet 17 with translation by Mark Eisner and myself. 
> 
> The French poem is Charles Baudelaire’s “Spleen: Quand le ciel bas et lourd”. Morgan’s first snippet of a translation is from James McColley Eilers and the second attempt is from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s translation.
> 
> I only vaguely know one of these languages, so if my futzing around to build fictional arguments interacts badly with actual expertise on your part, I do apologize. I’m out of my depth here.
> 
> I hope this was mostly enjoyable for you, dear reader!


End file.
